View allAll Photos Tagged panditji
me in red
the other two
you do not know
panditji from
a 750 year old
hanuman temple
in ajmer
on the left a devotee
at the Khwajahs door
on the right the head priest
of Brahma Mandir Pushkar
through my dreams
I washed up on his shores
godliness is beyond religiosity
2 Hindus a Shia Muslim
3 Indians - human
nothing more
united colors of India
as spirituality
on our bodies we wore
vande matram
a call of our nationality
in the spirit of amity
as the core
live and let
others live
we implore
radicalism
fundamentalism
poisonous puritanism
bombing
the soul of humanity
not anymore
let us live
as brothers
in peace
as we lived
like before
Jai Hind
Jai Ho
85,452 items / 512,473 views
Recipe in Tongue Ticklers
I love the way Italian cooking lends support to Indian cuisine. Today I tried a pesto that served as the masala for mashed eggplants and it tasted so good!!
Comments welcome!
The fruit seller had kept this one just for me. He gave it to my husband and said it would look nice in my picture:). Isn't that really nice? Looks so much nicer on black! (Press L)
Comments welcome.
Nagpur in India is famous for cultivation of orange. These are green outside but ripe. The fruit is sweet-sour.
Critique welcome.
AMONG DEVELOPING COUNTRIES,THE INDIAN FOREIGN SERVICE IS ONE Of THE OLDER AND BETTER-ORGANIZED DIPLOMATIC SERVICES. AN INSIDER DISCUSSES THE IFS’S ORIGINS AND CURRENT CONTOURS. (2002)
BY KISHAN S. RANA
Among the countries of the developing world, India has one of the older and better-organized diplomatic services. Part heir to the ‘Political Service’ of the renowned colonial Indian Civil Service, the Indian Foreign Service was established in 1948, a year after independence. From the outset the IFS was imbued with a sense of uniqueness and relative isolation from the rest of the central government, due primarily to the circumstances of its cre- ation as virtually a personal project of India’s first prime minister, the urbane and worldly national movement leader Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 1946, on the eve of independence, Jawaharlal Nehru articulated India’s commitment to approach the world with “clear and friendly eyes” and spoke of the newly liberated country’s right to choose an external pol- icy that reflected its independence and was not a pawn in the hands of others — the basic policy of nonalignment. Nehru functioned as his own foreign minister for his entire prime ministership, from 1947 until his death in 1964. It was Nehru who set up the Indian Foreign Service and, with his towering personality and penchant for micro-management, stamped it indelibly with his style as well as his worldview. For nearly two decades, both the IFS and the Ministry of External Affairs basked in Nehru’s reflected glory.
It is not our purpose to discuss the Nehruvian foreign policy legacy, but some instances of his passion for detail help shed light on facets of the Indian Foreign Service. It was not unusual, for example, for Nehru to write replies to incoming cipher telegrams from ambassadors, which were then sent out in the name of heads of territorial divi- sions, or even their deputies. In the very readable mem- oirs written by Badr-ud-din Tyabji, former ambassador and secretary in the MEA, Memoirs of an Egoist (Roli Books, 1988), this has been described as the syndrome of the time: “leave it to Panditji” — pushing up all decisions to Nehru, however minor.
Working on the staff of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1981-82, I came upon a set of long notes exchanged in the mid-1950s between Nehru and the Civil Service head of MEA, called the Foreign Secretary in Indian termi- nology. Nehru sent him a four-page note describing the criteria that should be applied to the selection of ambas- sadors. The Foreign Secretary sent a two-page rejoinder the same day, gently pointing to the practical difficulties in finding ideal choices, to which Nehru sent a further long response the next day. No decision was taken, the more so as selection of envoys was principally the prime minister’s prerogative, with the Foreign Secretary acting as his adviser. The exchange reflected Nehru’s passion for philosophical debate and his speed of thought, but also a certain disinclination for hard decisions.
The fact that for the first 30 years new entrants had to rank among the top 20 to 40 individuals in the Union Public Service Commission annual combined Civil Services examination merit list, out of the 20,000 to 40,000 who sat for the exam (which was the only entry route into the high civil services, including the sister ser- vice, the Indian Administrative Service), reinforced the sense of elitism.
In recent years career opportunities in India have greatly expanded. Yet the civil service, and the IFS in particular, continue to attract top talent. What are the contours of this diplomatic service today? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
The IFS Today
Structure.
The first thing to note about the Indian Foreign Service is that it is exceptionally small in size, by comparison with not just India’s needs but also the func- tions performed. To operate some 115 embassies and permanent missions and 40-odd consulates abroad, plus man the MEA, there are only some 750 officials of the rank of desk-officers and above (i.e., third secretaries and higher). By comparison the “tail” is much longer, consist- ing of about 2,800 non-diplomatic support personnel, according to the MEA Annual Report published each March.
MEA simply does not have the personnel it needs for vital tasks, and the number of missions abroad is too large. Ideally, looking to the experience of other major services, the ratio of officers at headquarters to missions should be around 1-to-1.5 or -2: in India it is 1-to-4. The IFS cadre needs urgent expansion to at least 1,000, and with it a pruning of support staff, via upgrading many to function as junior desk officials. With this must come also a reduction in the number of missions and posts. But as long as assignments abroad are seen as an essential “right,” vested interests block these cutbacks.
The results are plain to see. Public diplomacy, for example, is in its infancy in India, not because its meth- ods are not understood, but because the structure for handling this work does not exist. Today, the official head- ing the external publicity division is the MEA spokesper- son; this same person heads the entire publicity and information apparatus, and handles some aspects of public diplomacy as well, as there is no dedicated unit for this purpose.
Further, although all but one of the foreign ministries of the 19 countries of the E.U. and the G-8 have carried out structural changes since 1990 to cope with changes in the post-Cold War world (according to a comparative study by the Italian
Foreign Ministry), MEA has so far limited itself to adding a new territorial division to handle relations with the strategically important Central Asian countries. Deeper structural change has yet to materialize, though some reforms are under consideration.
There has always been an abundance of ideas — the problem is with action! The initiative of External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to re-examine the Service’s struc- tures, set into motion at the end of 2000, was moving slowly toward concrete action until he and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha swapped jobs in July, and it is now unclear if the planned actions will be implemented. These included creation of a Foreign Service inspec- torate (vital to undertake periodic inspection of all mis- sions, ensure uniformity of standards, and help to enhance their performance) and placement of IFS offi- cials within the administration of some states to help in their international contacts. There are also plans to expand the strength of the cadre, though not to the level needed; that would require a major decision of the gov- ernment, especially to link the expansion with cuts in the support staff.
Still, there is some expectation that the Jaswant Singh initiative may yet lead to some real improvements; the new minister has not revealed his thinking as yet. The recent reform proposals echo suggestions contained in the Pillai Committee Report of 1966, the only public doc- ument on the IFS and its reform. But the exercise that Jaswant Singh launched was different in one important respect — it was the first effort that originated at the min- isterial level, and from within MEA.
Training. Training for new entrants has improved dramatically in the past 15 years, with the establishment of the Foreign Service Institute in 1986 in New Delhi (set to move to its new campus in a year or so), and with a continuous improvement in training content. New entrants spend three months attending a common foundation course with all other entrants to the civil services for that year at the National Academy of Adminis- tration, located in the Himalayan hill-resort town of Mussourie, and then come to the Institute for a year. Their program encompasses lec- tures, workshops and visits to many partner agencies, including forma-tions of the army, navy and air force. It also calls for about five months of travel to different locations in the country to see the challenges of economic and social develop- ment, as well as two separate tours to neighboring coun- tries. Concerning languages, new recruits undergo train- ing in the assigned foreign language at the first station of assignment, and are confirmed in service after passing the language test.
What the IFS misses, however, is mid-career training — the Institute does nothing at all at this level, nor for senior officials. MEA is simply not able to spare anyone.
Recruitment and personnel management. The examination system for selection of civil servants, admin- istered by the Union Public Service Commission, now has some 300,000 applicants annually competing for about 300 to 400 jobs in all the “central services” — the other services are the Administrative Service, the Customs, Audit and Accounts, and the Police Service. The written exam is at two levels, with only about 20,000 who qualify at the first stage (the serious candidates) appearing for the second exam. Within a couple of months after the results announcement, all Civil Service entrants join the “foundation course” at Mussourie men- tioned earlier, and thereafter separate to attend training at their own services.
The IFS takes an average of around 10 new entrants each year, though in 2001 the number was stepped up to 18. A notable feature of recent years is the progressive widening of the intake — in terms of the regions and groups represented, the educational background and the presence of rural candidates. Around 20 percent of new recruits are women.
British colonial administrators borrowed the con- cept of a single open examination for the Civil Services from China. It has provided India with a stable, unified administrative structure, which has its faults — princi-pally that it has become a vehicle for corruption, and a victim of political pressures, and the two are inter- twined — but no one has come up with a remotely comparable or viable method of selection for new entrants into the Service.
Human resource management is the key issue for all organizations, the more so for diplomatic services that mainly deal in intangibles. Throughout the Indian admin- istration promotion by seniority is the norm; the only obstacle to promotion is outstanding incompetence. Since 1950 the constitutionally-mandated affirmative action pol- icy of reserving 22.5 percent of government service jobs for individuals from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been in effect. Now some even demand that this policy ought to apply also to promotions.
Against this background, maintaining the traditional systems of rotation among “hard” and “soft” posts and motivating individuals to perform their best are chal- lenges. Many of us lament that the system does not work optimally, but we should be thankful that it works at all.
A Learning Curve
Like many other diplomatic services, the MEA is still on a learning curve when it comes to coping with the new domestic players in diplomacy. Today as it shifts from the classic gatekeeper role in external affairs to that of the privileged coordinator, every foreign ministry has to han- dle three broad clusters of players — the official agencies beyond the foreign ministry, the non-state agents (cham- bers of commerce, academic institutions, think tanks, NGOs and the like), and the ordinary citizens who too are involved players in virtually every country. (The best definition of these new roles is provided in the opening essay by Brian Hocking in the book he has edited,
All government agencies are autonomous actors in the foreign arena. They will accept the foreign ministry as a coordinator only if they perceive this brings value to their interests and concerns. It is entirely possible for the Indian foreign ministry to do this, but to win credibility it needs to cultivate an inclusive attitude, and modify the past mindset of exclusivity and the corresponding turf- warfare reflex. There are exceptional senior MEA offi- cials who are able to get other ministries on board on spe- cific issues, but this is not the general practice as yet. Cooperation with non-state players is good in some areas, such as with the apex bodies of business and some branches of non-official international organizations, but almost nonexistent with high-profile NGOs and human rights activists.
Though performance enhancement methods, many of them borrowed from business management, have crept into the diplomatic work arena, the infrastructure to max- imize productivity is not uniformly in place. Methods to improve performance encompass annual action plans, benchmarking and service optimization (for example, in consular work, public affairs, and commercial promo- tion). MEA uses annual plans, but has not got around to tying resources into these, or carrying out a real delega- tion of financial powers. (This is a general weakness of the Indian system: even the budgeted funds of ministries, duly approved by parliament, can be spent only with the approval of the Finance Ministry, either directly for big- ticket items, or through the “financial advisers” it appoints and supervises in each ministry.) A ministry- wide computer network does not exist, though most ter- ritorial divisions have their own local area networks; they do not talk to one another, or to the higher officials. An intranet or virtual private network linking MEA and the missions remains on the drawing board.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What are the accomplishments of the IFS, and its points of strength? What might one expect from this set of professionals? My comments are necessarily subjec- tive, because within a “brotherhood” one may not find the distance for dispassionate scrutiny, and also because there exist no real tools for comparing foreign ministries and diplomats. With these caveats I offer the following.
Indians are individualists for the most part, and this
The IFS is exceptionally small in size, by comparison with India’s needs and the functions performed. shows in a huge variation between the best and the worst among diplomats. Major missions are natural concentra- tion points for talent, not just at the level of the head of mission. Anyone who has dealt with Indian counterparts in Washington, D.C., New York or Paris will bear witness that the best can hold their own against anyone. But if the true measure of a good system is that it evens out the peaks and troughs by ele- vating the performance of the lower half, then the IFS has a way to go.
In multilateral diplomacy during the 1970s and 1980s, in what we might call the heyday of declaratory diploma- cy, Indians seized the high ground at conferences, U.N. assemblies and committees — alas, not all of it very pro- ductively. In bilateral diplomacy, which is necessarily practiced on a much broader canvas, there are the bright stars, and the rest. And it is often noted that the discrep- ancy between the peaks and troughs of ability and perfor- mance among different persons is glaring. Management and business culture specialists observe the same trait of individualism, and a relative weakness at teamwork, when they look at the Indian corporate world.
One of the strong features of the IFS was an early shift to economic diplomacy. The first oil shock of 1973 deliv- ered a body blow to the Indian economy at a time when it had barely recovered from the disastrous droughts of the late 1960s (when P.L. 480 provided succor, before the Green Revolution became a reality), and from the Bangladesh War of 1971. Economic diplomacy became a matter of survival for India, and the IFS adapted rapidly, quickly learning to blend political and economic objec- tives, and practice integrated diplomacy.
The service produced role models like Bimal Sanyal and Vishnu Ahuja, both senior heads of MEA’s Economics Division, who demonstrated that being proactive involved a vast amount of internal diplomacy with the other min- istries and agencies, but reliably produced results. The two mobilized public-private partnerships at home, at a time when even this concept was in its infancy, to push for project and consultancy contracts in the Gulf region, and to win placement for Indian technicians. Simultaneously, they motivated Indian missions to blend political and eco- nomic diplomacy, a craft I, too, learnt in my first ambas- sadorship in Algeria (1975-79). Today there is hardly a diplomat or a mission that fails to treat economics as virtually the first priority at the majority of posts, on the premise that good political relations are a given condition in most countries but it is economics that explores the full enve- lope of action, and valorizes the politi- cal relationship as well. Is there an Indian negotiating style? Stephen Cohen, one of the gurus of South Asia scholarship in the U.S., has a brilliant chapter in his book,
India: Emerging Power (Brookings Institution, 2001), titled “The India That Can’t Say Yes.” Cohen’s thesis is, first, that Indians are intent on establishing the moral and political equality of the two sides and are especially touchy over “status”; second, they are patient and will wait till the terms improve; third, they negotiate for information; and fourth, they tend to have a good institutional memory, better than that of the Americans. Cohen also speaks of “a defensive arrogance and acute sensitivity to real and perceived slights,” and concludes that India seems to relish “getting to no.” He adds that MEA has tight control over foreign negotiations and is difficult to bypass.
Behind the “Indian Negotiating Style”
Some of the above criticism comes from experience with India-U.S. relations of the pre-1991 era, when India’s South-centered diplomacy (including leadership of the Nonaligned Movement, G-77 and the like) produced inevitable confrontation with much of the West. However, Strobe Talbott, whose 10-odd rounds of discussion with Jaswant Singh between 1998 and 2000 are the most inten- sive dialogue carried out by India with the U.S. or any other partner, may not agree with all of Cohen’s character- ization.
Indian negotiators are often hemmed in by an impos- sible brief, which is relatively rigid, to the point that no fallback positions are provided or flexibility given to the negotiators. The result is “positional bargaining” and an impression of negativism. For example, this was the case in the past with WTO meetings and other multilateral economic fora. By contrast, at Doha in November 2001, a strong Cabinet minister leading the Indian delegation, with the personal clout to obtain flexible instructions, managed to produce a good result, overcoming the rigidi-ties of the brief and past policy. Many individual negotiators are bril-liant, adept at winning trust and work- ing to achieve results. And generally, in multilateral settings Indians are often a popular consensus choice as rappor- teurs and committee chairmen. But in regional diplomacy, being adept at tac-tics is not enough when policy has been unimaginative or defensive. This has been the case, for example, in India’s past stance vis-à-vis ASEAN, when opportunities for close association were passed up in the 1980s. Defensiveness has crippled India’s approach to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, where a fear of all the smaller neighbors ganging up blocked innovative ideas to overcome the impasse created by Pakistan’s obduracy.
India’s economic reforms, launched in 1991, coincided with the end of the Cold War. Both have affected the way India looks at the world, and the goals it pursues external- ly, in bilateral, regional and multilateral settings. India
remains nonaligned in the original sense of the term, but real Indian involvement with NAM and G-77 has waned. Instead, there is a clearer per- ception of self-interest, and a willing- ness to say so. This translates into hard-headed pragmatism, where ideo- logical rhetoric of the past is absent, and does not cloud actions. This is especially visible in pursuit of eco-political objectives. In the Sept. 11 attacks, India finds vindication of the battle it has long waged against terrorism, plus the opportunity to pursue new relationships in Central Asia and elsewhere that move beyond a fixation with Pakistan.
As a service, the IFS has no political bias and it is well harnessed in the pursuit of national goals. Yet it has the latent capacity to perform far better, provided that real reform can be implemented in the MEA and its process- es incrementally — for that is the only “Indian way” that produces results. ■
(Kishan S. Rana joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1960 and served in Hong Kong, Beijing (twice) and Geneva. He specialized in Chinese affairs and, later, economic diplomacy. He was ambassador to Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Mauritius and Germany, retir- ing in 1995. He is Professor Emeritus at the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi, and the author of Inside Diplomacy (Manas Publications, 2000) and Bilateral Diplomacy ( F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2)
Guest
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 12:06 pm
www.betterphotography.in/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4922#4922
Just registered this morning but i have been a subscriber of BP since many years.
My gurus are KG Maheshwari, Prof B W Jatkar , Shreekanth Malushte and the man of all seasons the Maha Guru Girish Mistry.
I was a salon photographer member of PSI Mumbai, FIP, IIPC, NAPP, but I gave up all this for Photo Blogging..
my website..
www.photographerno1.com 8240 files 6 lac hits in two years.
www.flickr.com/photos/firozeshakir/ 11755 photoblogs in 2 months
I shoot eunuchs hijdas transgenders live with naga sadhus, aghoris, practice shiasm, shoot pictures of all religion without bias..
I am a poet who is at poemhunter.com fighting against racism in poetry.
Thought you guys should know the rest is scattered on the internet..The Indian Pilgrims Progress..
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Panditji
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:34 pm
Joined: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 130
Hi! Firoz , I think that is your name . It is a nice name - short and easy
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ani
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 4:11 pm
Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 391
welcome to BP foum!
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mcliu
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:28 pm
Joined: 31 May 2007
Posts: 314
Welcome Firoj
You have a "Dhamaal" Ka entry And given us a " Dhassu" introductions.Almost all the biggee names is thrown at us. We are humbled
Now I do request you to post your "Zhakas" picture here. So we all can admire your piece of work
Liu
Me
I am grateful to all of you Panditji , Mcliu Ani for accepting me as your own, I am not here to blow my trumpet I shoot Life as I see it.. there is nothing Jhakas but love for each other irrespective of caste color and creed what I am is in my Photo Blog,..my style of photography is based on Yogic Kundalini uncoiling the serpent before hitting the trigger.. I shoot on one leg and with my eyes closed..
Thank you all.
gopal
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:50 am
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 174
oh great guy,
great introduction. u are an extrovert person what i felt from yr sayings and sites above.
Respected shri k g maheshwari and prof b w jatkar regularly sent their entries when i conducted 4 all india salons few yrs back.
i met respected shrikantji many yrs back, when i joined JJ School of Arts.
when i read feroz, the thoughts came to me of famous feroz rangoonwala.
anyhow, i welcome u to bp forum (what i noticed, blogging is not here). we view each others photographs and appreciate their efforts. so since u introduced yrself as photographer no.1, with all respects to yr personality, looking forward to see yr work, particularly on glamour. best of luck dear feroz. it will be pleasure for me to see yr sites.
gopal
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:24 am
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 174
dear feroz,
read yr posts/blogs, and i am sorry to notice the treatment given to u as shia or muslim. there are ultras in every religion, but i appreciate yr spirit for keeping yr morale high.
no doubt u are a voracious /reader/writer, and yr keyboard runs more than fast, it is again pleasing that u are interested in poetry-which is also my favourites
"woh aaye hamare forum mein, khuda ki kudrat,
kabhi ham unko aur kabhi forum ko dekhte hain.".
personalities like u are rare, and i feel that u will leave a great legacy for the posterity. i and my friends do have respect for yr courage for bearing so much tension and traumas. but what i feel, yr interests in these arts kept u going nonchalantly. forget about religion-we all are bhartiya (not anil bhartiya-a good gentleman).
me
Brother Gopal thank you for your encouraging words , and I am Indian ,and also a member of Mr Anil Bhrtiyas NAPP ,I learnt a lot from him , on trips to Murud to shoot the Bullock Cart race , or to Malshej Ghats, he is the only photographer teacher who teaches through field trips at grass root levels, and most of the photography courses even taught in BMM still adhere to the old school , no changes, no crusader to bring in change.
Photography is big bucks , everybody wants glamour glitz and money.Teachers like Mitter Bedi, Unwallah, Bhardwaj, Phanibanda are are all dead and gne who taught photography once they clamoured and gathered at Photographic Society of India 70 years back, today Photography in camera clubs is about politics, I distanced myself from this state of affairs.
Girish Mistry teaches photography with a pssion and is most respected and revered..but his knowledge comes with a price , but worth it .I learnt my basics with Mr Shreekanth Malushte.. a sincere teacher.
Later through his efforts I became a life member Photographic Society of India Mumbai, and met mu other two Gurus Mr KG Maheshwari whom we call Dronacharya and Black and White Jatkar.Prof Jatkar is the master of monochrome and nudes.
So the most important the core ingredient in Indian Photography is finding a good Guru touching his Feat ..this is called Guru Parampara.. Without Guru there is no Gyan..
This s why we are more powerfully visually stronger and better entrenched than the foreigm Institute learned photographer of the West.
I have another Guru he is a 18 year old American boy from California called Tom, or doyoulike it, I call him my American Guru, he is the finest photographer..
There is another photographer whose work on India is prolific and realistic.. Dr Glenn Losack MD
www.glennlosackmd.com/-/glennlosackmd/
Well I will shed light later on Tom, and pictures of Dr Glen Losack you must study , this is the way into the heart of photography.
Photography is shooting and sharing pictures, but Photo Blogging is sharing Life , adding Life to where no Life existed..
So thank you Gopal.. I am just getting a hang here at BP Forum..
I consider Photo Blogging a a spiritual endeavor as a photographer I may be a part of a religiosity but as a Photo Blogger I am beyond all this flowing in the human stream of a superior consciousness...
I am Hindu I am Muslim but I am two sides of the same coin called India.
sujit_n
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 7:03 pm
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 163
Firoze,
It is really inspiring to know about your philosophy. Great interprtation of life & photography. You must believe that every people has some hidden intention, who tries to nourish it,few get success, few ....
When we come to know or meet people who always put thrust to fulfill his hidden intention which is not for earning money, fame, clout, we create a barrier arround that man or woman. We never compare him/her with others. I feel you are a guy like that.
Welcome in this FORUM.
Sujit
Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 4:55 pm
Me
Thank yoy Sujit for your hospitality and kindness , and its really nice to know that we bond and our love for photgraphy brings us closer , with pictures we share, I thank not just you but all of you who have responded to me Panditji, Mcliu Ani Gopal and the rest ..those that have read me too, I am not aware of the code of posting etiquette here, so please forgive me for any unintentional lapse on my part, I am an incorrigible photo blogger , words are my birthright and I use them as a pictoral metaphor ..my path to unlearning photography.
Firoze Shakir..
Me
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:52 am
Hi Forum If anyBP Forum member needs guidance in Photo Blogging , or any query in this regard dont hesitate to write me.
People who want to share a unique community of photographers, the short cut is a Photo Blog..
Some of the interesting Photo Blogging site with emphasis on social net working too are
Buzznet
For the serious Blogger
Bloggerspot
Word Press
For the Foto Freak
Flickr
Ipernity
Blogging may net earnyou big bucks but it gives you a karmic release if you have the zing in you, and if you dont have you develop it, I never wrote a single word , never an article nor any poem..it all happened through Photo Blogging 24 months back..
I rarely post atBuzznet where I am known as Shiathugno1, but it is to Buzznet I owe the development of my psyche ...good friends and outstanding photographers who bought me this far adding the necessary shape to my personality..as an Indian beware Racism exiss but hit back..
dont be scared we Indians have one grand advantage we were born talented by default..thank you India.
Admin
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:13 am
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 36
Dear Firoze,
Your posts are really interesting and we can see the response you have been receiving on this forum. Thank you for bringing in a new dimension to the forum.
A request: All of your new posts are being posted in the "Who's Who" category, which is primarily for first time introductions. Since your posts are blog-like accompanied by pictures - we would request you to post them in relevant sections like "General Discussions" or "Daily Life" (if your discussions stem from a Daily Life photograph).
Thanks.
Happy Shooting
- Admin
Me
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:58 pm
Thank You Administration Better Photography
My relationship with BP goes a very long way back, I would visit your offices I remember and bond with your enthusiastic journos and stafff..
Its just that after I moved away , from analogue photography and gave my soul to the Photo bLog, I realised I had begun to Unlearn Photography. and break the myth created by Times of India blue eyed boy Shobhan Saxena that Photo Bloggers are photographers with a mission of Peace, not failed writers, and murderers, or crazies as suggested each time and each Sunday they write an obitury for the death of the Blog.. but God is kind to Blogges and keeps extending their shelf life.Recently at PSI Mumbai Annual Day where your ex editor Hoshang was the Chief Guest I posed a question about blogging he just looked at me with a vacncy in his eyes.. well Blogging is beyond Smart Photograpy I kept this opinion to myself..Photographers are seduced by the idea of minting money they want to be glitzy, shoot celebs , so hardly any camera club talks about blogging..auacbecause I posted 600 blogs in three days..and scared the veterans of a tsunami in the offing..racism exists among us Indians too and more strongly here than the West..Indians dont like Indians very much..
At Word Press I posted over 500 blogs in a single day..so this is the passion of blogging..I hope to learn from all of you also, and thanks I find your forum an excellent place that nurtures human goodwill.. I am a bit confused about the format here , thanks for the tip, deleting a post should be made simpler even editing too..
As ever
Firoze Shakir
photographerno1
Mumbai..
Me
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:07 pm
Sakthivel wrote:
Welcome.
thank you sakthivel for adding me asa contact on flickr .. my flickr site had a lot of crazies and porn artists adding me so I have become more careful, also my pictures because of frontal nudity and bloody images of moharam fall under moderate category, you have to be a flickr member to see my images close to 12000 posted in two and a half month..but you can see the same on Wordpress.. without any problem.
you cannot comment on my pictures if you are not my contact, as there are many Shia baters that have gone abusive and personal intheir religious fundamental attacks on me .
I am a critic of Jehadi Terrorism and Radical Islam..
My flickr pictures are all large files about 4mb each..
Hijdas Transgenders, naga sadhus body piercers ..
Take Care..
Firoze Shakir
Photographerno1
noni
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:38 pm
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 75
Hi Firoze,
welcome to forum.As for as i know u can't delete or edit ur post once it is posted.Yes it can be edited in preview mode.Your posted photographs will be deleted if u delete it from original site e.g.flickr.com etc...noni.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:05 pm
Me
Thank You Noni , I think any website or a forum should be blogger friendly simple and easily understandable, whether a veteran or an amateur should get the hang of it, and edit and delete are very important aspects to control content that goes off hand sometimes.. but I have no complaints my problem is I am a severe diabetic I type with one finger of an injured hand I have diminishing eyesight so I make typo errors that really look bad after posting..and inspite of being a blogger fr two years I am not at all web or net savvy
After this Panditji and his cronies sharpielnof my end .
All these faces that welcomed me to the Better Photo graphy Forum ganged up against me the most vicious the Rogue Pandit
the head of the Muslim hating gang..
I am greatful that Better Photography Adminsitration dealt with this matterjudiciously fairly without any bias
and with respect of human sentiments.
My relationship with Better Photography shall continue..
I will make public the racism in photography that existing the Forum that has been usurped by vested interests., all wearing masks of hate , they welcome newcomers than if you falter or rub any one of them they will make your life unbearable..
Like this vicious Panditji who said if Firoze does not leave I will leave the Forum..
This devious man , Muslim hater, and he cannot deny all this, he hated me from day one realising that his popularity was going to take a beating.
I have no ulterior motive or agenda but to warn others of the duplicity of these hate filled members.,.
Gopal said bloggers are not allowed to the forum vociferously as though he owns the forum..
this despicable lot of , they perhaps were shocked that this Shia Muslim, is an Indian does not wear a goatee or a skull cap..
and perhaps yes as panditji said I am a Bombast, yes but shit head your father did not pay for my education, and I had a more cosmopolitan and Hindu loving upbringing than you..as a Hindu born could ever dream of Messiah of Racist Hate ..
The Kumbh is over long live the Kumbh on Flickr ..
YES I AM A SHIA PANDIT
I DONT NEED THE SAFETY OF A POISONOUS BOTTLE AND END UP A CRAB LIKE YOU
I REITERATE INDIANS ARE THE BIGGER RACISTS..
INDIANS HATE INDIANS
Firoze Shakir
Photographer No1
Some year's back I had shot a hoarding of "Raymond Suitings - The Complete Men" at Haji-Ali Dargah signal. The hoarding had these revered leaders on it.
Thought to merge that with a Old Paper - Spread texture.
The flower is an old picture shot by me which I again merged it with our flag's tri color which I downloaded from google.
www.flickr.com/photos/humayunnapeerzaada/542663397/
Old Paper - Spread Texture courtesy - bittbox.
www.flickr.com/photos/bittbox/2691974424/
Happy Independence week to every one over here at flickr & facebook.
Vaishno Devi Mandir (Hindi: वैष्णोदेबी मन्दिर) is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Shakti, located in the hill of Vaishno Devi, Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Hinduism, Vaishno Devi, also known as Mata Rani and Vaishnavi, is a manifestation of the Mother Goddess.
The temple is near the town of Katra, in Udhampur district in the state of Jammu and Kashmir,. It is one of the most revered places of worship in Northern India. The shrine is at an altitude of 5200 feet and a distance of approximately 12 kilometres (7.45 miles) from Katra. Million of pilgrims visit the temple every year and is the second most visited religious shrine in India, after Tirumala Venkateswara Temple. The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board maintains the shrine. A rail link from Udhampur to Katra is being built to facilitate pilgrimage.
According to Hindu epic, Maa Vaishno Devi took birth in the South of India in the home of Ratnakar Sagar, Her worldly parents had remained childless for a long time. Ratnakar had promised, the night before the birth of the Divine child, that he would not come in the way of whatever his child desired. Ma Vaishno Devi was called Trikuta as a child. Later She was called Vaishnavi because of Her taking birth from Lord Vishnu's lineage. When Trikuta was 9 years old, She sought her father's permission for doing penance on the seashore. Trikuta prayed to Lord Vishnu in the form of Rama. During Shree Rama's search for Sita, He reached the seashore along with His army. His eyes fell on this Divine Girl in deep meditation. Trikuta told Shree Rama that She had accepted Him as Her husband. Shree Rama told Her that during this Incarnation He had vowed to be faithful to only Sita. However the Lord assured Her that in Kaliyuga He would manifest as Kalki and would marry Her.
In the meantime Shree Rama asked Trikuta to meditate in the cave found in the Trikuta Range of Manik Mountains, situated in Northern India. Ma decided to observe the 'Navratra' for the Victory of Shree Rama against Ravan. Hence one reads the Ramayana during the 9 days of Navratra, in remembrance of the above connection. Shree Rama promised that the whole world would sing Ma Vaishno Devi's praise. Trikuta was to become famous as Vaishno Devi and would become immortal forever.[1]
With the passage of time many more stories about the Mother Goddess emerged. One such story is about Shree-Dhar.
Shree-Dhar was an ardent devotee of Ma Vaishno Devi. He resided in a village called Hansali, 2 km away from the present Katra town. Once Ma appeared to him in the form of a young bewitching girl. The young girl asked the humble Pandit to hold a 'Bhandara'. (A feast to feed the mendicants and devotees) The Pandit set out to invite people from the village and near-by places. He also invited 'Bhairav Nath' a selfish demon. Bhairav Nath asked Shri-Dhar how he was planning to fulfill the requirements. He reminded him of the bad consequences in case of failure. As Panditji was lost in worry, the Divine girl appeared and told Him not to be despondent as everything had been arranged. She asked that over 360 devotees be seated in the small hut. True to Her word the Bhandara went smoothly with food and place to spare.
Bhairav Nath admitted that the girl had supernatural powers and decided to test Her further. He followed the Divine girl to Trikuta Hills. For 9 months Bhairav Nath was searching for the mystic girl in the mountains, whom he believed was an incarnation of the Mother Goddess. While running away from Bhairav, Devi shot an arrow into the Earth from which water gushed out. The resultant river is known as Baanganga. It is believed that by taking a bath in Baanganga (Baan: Arrow), a believer of the Mother Goddess can wash away all his sins. The banks of the river, known as Charan Paduka, are marked by Devi's foot imprints, which remains intact till date. Vaishno Devi then took shelter in a cave known as Garbh Joon near Adhkawari where she meditated for 9 months attaining spiritual wisdom and powers. Her meditation was cut short when Bhairav located her. Vaishno Devi was then compelled to take the form of Maha Kali when Bhairav tried to kill her. The manifestation of the Mother Goddess took place at the mouth of the Holy cave at Darbar. The Goddess then beheaded Bhairav with such sheer force, that his skull fell at a place known as Bhairav Ghati, 2.5 km from the Holy Cave.
In his dying moments, Bhairav pleaded for forgiveness. The Goddess knew that Bhairav's main intention in attacking her was to achieve salvation. She not only granted Bhairav liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, but also granted him a boon, whereby every devotee, in order to ensure completion of the pilgrimage, had to visit Bhairav Nath's temple near the Holy cave after the darshan of the Goddess.Meanwhile Vaishno Devi assumed the shape of a rock with three pindis (heads) and immersed herself into meditation forever.
Meanwhile Pandit Shree-Dhar became impatient. He started to march towards Trikuta Mountain on the same path that he had witnessed in a dream. He ultimately reached the cave mouth. He made a daily routine of worshiping the 'Pindis' in several ways. His worship pleased the Goddess. She appeared in front of him and blessed him. Since that day, Shree-Dhar and his descendants have been worshiping the Goddess Mother Vaishno Devi.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Petrol Pump Wale Veer Hanuman Ji Temple is located at “The Pink City of India”-Jaipur belongs to Jaipur district in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
It is situated at Sodala locality on Ajmer Road of the Jaipur city.
Hanuman Jayanti festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm every year. On this occasion, the main statue of Lord Hanuman is taken out and given a bath in the morning. After that new Chola is offered to the idol and by wearing new clothes and Langot, Mahajyot and Aarti is performed. Attractive decoration is done with the rosary and out skirts of the temple. Sundarkand Path is also organized on this occasion.
Bhavya Shobhayatra is organized which leaves the temple and reaches at Panditji's Chaurahas, Hasanpura, four number dispensaries and come back to the temple. The devotees walk in Shobhayatra about ten o'clock in the morning along with singing Hanuman Bhajans. During this, police administration has to make efforts to maintain the system due to the crowds in the temple.
Jaipur, a natural beauty with great history and flourishing tourism industry, is famous as “Choti Kashi” because of the holy importance of many magnificent temples.
Jaipur is situated at a distance of 260 kms from the Indian capital city New Delhi, it forms a part of the “Golden Triangle Tourist Circuit” along with Agra (240 kms).
Temples & other Places of Interest :-
(1) Hawa Mahal or Palace of Breeze
(2) Jal Mahal, set in the middle of Man Sagar Lake, beautiful water palace
(3) Sheesh Mahal
(4) Jantar Mantar
(5) Ram Niwas Garden with Albert Hall (or Central) Museum
(6) Jaipur Zoo or Zoological Garden
(7) Sisodia Rani Palace and Garden
Q: How do you think that Indian classical music influences one as a person?
A: Whoever gets involved in this field becomes spiritual because the music itself is purely spiritual. The music is a prayer, a rare kind of prayer. Music is created by the Supreme entity (‘Brahma’) so that we can get an understanding or a view (‘Darshan’) of that entity.
When I play music, that is my best yoga, the best meditation, the best prayer.
Music is my love. And because it is my love, music has become my religion.
{ Excerpts from interview with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, by Ian Gottstein www.ru.org/chaurasia-104.htm}
Official website: www.hariprasadchaurasia.com/
The above photograph has been featured in the BBC - Global Echoes article which includes an audio interview with Panditji
www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/content/articles/2009/05/11/chaurasi...
Regards,
Manoj
Vaishno Devi Mandir (Hindi: वैष्णोदेबी मन्दिर) is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Shakti, located in the hill of Vaishno Devi, Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Hinduism, Vaishno Devi, also known as Mata Rani and Vaishnavi, is a manifestation of the Mother Goddess.
The temple is near the town of Katra, in Udhampur district in the state of Jammu and Kashmir,. It is one of the most revered places of worship in Northern India. The shrine is at an altitude of 5200 feet and a distance of approximately 12 kilometres (7.45 miles) from Katra. Million of pilgrims visit the temple every year and is the second most visited religious shrine in India, after Tirumala Venkateswara Temple. The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board maintains the shrine. A rail link from Udhampur to Katra is being built to facilitate pilgrimage.
According to Hindu epic, Maa Vaishno Devi took birth in the South of India in the home of Ratnakar Sagar, Her worldly parents had remained childless for a long time. Ratnakar had promised, the night before the birth of the Divine child, that he would not come in the way of whatever his child desired. Ma Vaishno Devi was called Trikuta as a child. Later She was called Vaishnavi because of Her taking birth from Lord Vishnu's lineage. When Trikuta was 9 years old, She sought her father's permission for doing penance on the seashore. Trikuta prayed to Lord Vishnu in the form of Rama. During Shree Rama's search for Sita, He reached the seashore along with His army. His eyes fell on this Divine Girl in deep meditation. Trikuta told Shree Rama that She had accepted Him as Her husband. Shree Rama told Her that during this Incarnation He had vowed to be faithful to only Sita. However the Lord assured Her that in Kaliyuga He would manifest as Kalki and would marry Her.
In the meantime Shree Rama asked Trikuta to meditate in the cave found in the Trikuta Range of Manik Mountains, situated in Northern India. Ma decided to observe the 'Navratra' for the Victory of Shree Rama against Ravan. Hence one reads the Ramayana during the 9 days of Navratra, in remembrance of the above connection. Shree Rama promised that the whole world would sing Ma Vaishno Devi's praise. Trikuta was to become famous as Vaishno Devi and would become immortal forever.[1]
With the passage of time many more stories about the Mother Goddess emerged. One such story is about Shree-Dhar.
Shree-Dhar was an ardent devotee of Ma Vaishno Devi. He resided in a village called Hansali, 2 km away from the present Katra town. Once Ma appeared to him in the form of a young bewitching girl. The young girl asked the humble Pandit to hold a 'Bhandara'. (A feast to feed the mendicants and devotees) The Pandit set out to invite people from the village and near-by places. He also invited 'Bhairav Nath' a selfish demon. Bhairav Nath asked Shri-Dhar how he was planning to fulfill the requirements. He reminded him of the bad consequences in case of failure. As Panditji was lost in worry, the Divine girl appeared and told Him not to be despondent as everything had been arranged. She asked that over 360 devotees be seated in the small hut. True to Her word the Bhandara went smoothly with food and place to spare.
Bhairav Nath admitted that the girl had supernatural powers and decided to test Her further. He followed the Divine girl to Trikuta Hills. For 9 months Bhairav Nath was searching for the mystic girl in the mountains, whom he believed was an incarnation of the Mother Goddess. While running away from Bhairav, Devi shot an arrow into the Earth from which water gushed out. The resultant river is known as Baanganga. It is believed that by taking a bath in Baanganga (Baan: Arrow), a believer of the Mother Goddess can wash away all his sins. The banks of the river, known as Charan Paduka, are marked by Devi's foot imprints, which remains intact till date. Vaishno Devi then took shelter in a cave known as Garbh Joon near Adhkawari where she meditated for 9 months attaining spiritual wisdom and powers. Her meditation was cut short when Bhairav located her. Vaishno Devi was then compelled to take the form of Maha Kali when Bhairav tried to kill her. The manifestation of the Mother Goddess took place at the mouth of the Holy cave at Darbar. The Goddess then beheaded Bhairav with such sheer force, that his skull fell at a place known as Bhairav Ghati, 2.5 km from the Holy Cave.
In his dying moments, Bhairav pleaded for forgiveness. The Goddess knew that Bhairav's main intention in attacking her was to achieve salvation. She not only granted Bhairav liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, but also granted him a boon, whereby every devotee, in order to ensure completion of the pilgrimage, had to visit Bhairav Nath's temple near the Holy cave after the darshan of the Goddess.Meanwhile Vaishno Devi assumed the shape of a rock with three pindis (heads) and immersed herself into meditation forever.
Meanwhile Pandit Shree-Dhar became impatient. He started to march towards Trikuta Mountain on the same path that he had witnessed in a dream. He ultimately reached the cave mouth. He made a daily routine of worshiping the 'Pindis' in several ways. His worship pleased the Goddess. She appeared in front of him and blessed him. Since that day, Shree-Dhar and his descendants have been worshiping the Goddess Mother Vaishno Devi.[2]
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
I come to this section of Char Yar , which is prayer house cum graveyard , away from the Dhuni where Naubat Ali Bawa presides.At the Dhuni it is huge bouts of chilum smoking, medley of faces with poverty etched permanently, they who are here call themselves Murid of any particular Bawa.,,,this is a state of mind called Bawagiri.
The side that you see in my picture is much more disciplined, more troubled family members who come here to partake spiritual help from the Malangs, yes this section is a Malang stronghold, my Dread Headed Bawas hold court here, across from where they sit is the Lady Malang, she watched me curiously, without taking her permission pointing my camera at another end, I moved in slyly to take this shot…I dont know her story, some stories unveil themselves the next trip I take, I am a Muslim decked up Christmas tree on Diwali day, its hard not to register me.Just before the Ajmer Sharif trip signs will unfold, at this time I might be broke but if I am called nothing will stop me…Calls will come from Eunuch Nayaks and Gurus, inviting me to their Sandal offerings on Chatti…I will say just one word..Inshallah.
At Ajmer Sharif I am in a perpetual dilemma , I think it is important for any photographer trying to emulate me as a photo journalist , dont, or you will go crazy, I am crazy so it saves me the bother.The dilemma is I am a guest of Peersaab Fakhru Miya , Hujra No6 I stay in his private chambers, sit at the Hujra touching the Bulund Darwaza, but my Mind is as at Char Yar , that was for about a year.But theAll India Hijra Sammmelan spolit me, the Hijdas that I met at the conclave ,were all here at Moti Katra , so now I would be doing a pictorial tight walk shooting Basanti the Eunuch Queen, Sohel, Zeenath, along with my guide Zubair Bawa, or rushing towards Char Yar shooting Gaddi Nashin Naushad Ali or Zanjirwale bawa, or being mistaken for a Bawa myself and being shot by a Delhi photographer Amit Pachoria…
Than my impulsiveness, trekking barefeet into the mountains close to Taragadh to shoot the Graves of the Eunuch Saint and his biological Son.. at Chashme Nur..
So if I was either concentrating on one subject would be better but I love both these communities passionately, luckily there are no Naga Sadhu Shrines around here or I would go berserk…
So I hate being Me .Period.
The Murids of Peersaab , get angry with me , as Peersaab inquires about me each time I disappear , so the Murids go on a wild goose chase, I dont carry my mobile .
They want me to sit at the Hujra.. I am a mover , I can never sit silent in one place…
I am here for 3 days , I have to avoid Pushkar, my favorite Brahma haunt shortage of time.
I miss Pushkar…the Head Priest is a very good friend and my Panditji who had escorted me here two years back.
So now you can imagine how I feel chained here with a wounded hand, dependent on Insulin, diet control, no outside food, no Namkeen, my heart soaring fighting for release to reach Koothandavar for the Koovagam Hijda Feast…
Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi seems to be very busy.. so if she was going there I could accompany her,but Lakshmi is a pompous arrogant Aryan superior Hijda Goddess…she will not stoop to conquer at Koovagam.. she has gone International , now she might just be in Amsterdam.
April 22nd, 2007
My fruit seller gave this to my husband saying that 'madam' might like to use it for a photograph! How thoughtful people can be!:) This guava is not the one commonly found in Maharashtra. It is from Allahabad and the seeds are concentrated in a small ball in the center of the fruit. The fruit itself is very sweet and absolutely perfect for a tart!
I was at Pushkar two years back when I first visited Khwajah Garib Nawaz at Ajmer , I had seen a mandir in my dream , I talked to Peersaab , explained it to him, I must tell you all these years I had never seen a single picture of Pushkar though I had heard of the Pushkar Fair..
Peersaab told me that it was the Brahma Mandir , that I had seen I should go and visit it.
I thought of taking Sarfaraz his street smart Murid from Mumbai , but Peersaab surprised me by saying I should go with Panditji whom he had introduced to me at his Hujra , Panditji is a priest custodian of a 750 year old Hanuman Mandir , he is a devotee of the Khwajah, he had seen the Saint in his dreams.. Panditji had himself circumsised is a staunch Hindu but with a soft corner for the Holy Saint Of Ajmer.
All the monies he gets for the rituals he performs he tells the devotees to offer it at the tomb of the Kwajah.. it is this man who was my guide at Pushkar.
And he is known as Panditji..
Now a little background on the Brahma Mandir from Wikipedia..
Pushkar is a town in the state of Rajasthan in India near (14 Kilometer away) Ajmer and one of the sacred pilgrimage for hindus and is often called “Tirth Raj” ( king of pilgrim centres) .It is an important tourist destination too. Pushkar is famous for Pushkar Lake and the 14th century temple to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. This is the only temple of the god Brahma in the world. It is also famous for its annual Pushkar Camel Fair.No pilgrimage of hindu places is considered complete till the pilgrim bathes in sacred waters of Pushkara. There is another Pushkar - Budha Pushkar (Old Pushkar) few Kilometers away from the main Pushkar which is famous for Rose Farming.
It is one of the oldest places of India .It is difficult to say when it came into existence but the legend associates Lord Brahma with its creation.
Ramayan mentions Pushkara and says that Vishvamitra performed tapa here.It further says that Apsara Menaka came to Pushkara to bathe in its sacred waters.
Mahabharata while laying down a programme of Maharaja Yudhishthara’s travel says “Maharaja after entering the Jungles of Sind and crossing the small rivers on the way should bathe in Pushkara”.As per Vaman Purana Prahlada on his pilgrimage to holy places visited Pushkarayana.
Pratihara ruler of Mandore Nahadarava restored tirtha in the seventh century.He got the place cleared and lake restored by making an embarkment on th side.He rebuilt old palaces and got twelve dhrnashalas (resting places) and ghatas on three sides of the lake.
The sage Parasara is said to have born here .His descendents called Parasara Brahamanas are found in Pushkar and surrounding areas.The famous temple of Jeenmata has been under Parasara Brahmans for last 1000 years. Pushkarana Brahamanas may also probably originated here.
Lord Brahma - Present at the Creation
If mountains of black collyrium are mixed with the waters of the ocean to serve as ink, If branches of the Kalpa Vriksha serve as the stylus If to the writer, Goddess Sarada, the earth serves as the blank sheet They will all still be insufficient to describe the glory of Lord Brahma. The four faced god, Brahma, conceived as the first of all gods precedes the Universe in existence and engages in creation.
Even among deities, a process of selection seems to operate: there are some who have a fan following establishing cults along history and time, while others remain as figureheads adorning the Hindu pantheon, but not having nay day to day ritualistic contact with the masses. They do not get personified in idols along road corners nor do they have their birthdays celebrated. On such is Lord Brahma. He has but one solitary temple at Pushkar, Rajasthan and some small shrines across the country. But, say interpreters of Hindu traditions and scriptures, Brahma is the creator of the heaven and the earth. He is the creator of all. He knows all. But He, He Himself cannot be comprehended by mortals. Brahma lives in the mortal world unassumingly. As we get better acquainted with him, there are many other myths that explain why.
Brahma also known as Prajapati is the creator par excellence, the foremost of the Hindu trinity, the other two being Siva and Vishnu, the destroyer and the protector. Brahma is also the first and the most ancient God, who is known in the Rg Veda (the oldest of the Vedas) by various epithets. He is the dhata (the one who gives), the Vidhata (the Supreme). He is also called Brhaspathi and Brahmanaspati.
At one plane Brahma is associated with activities that are similar to those in the mortal world. At another, Brahma represents high philosophy. He, as the creator symbolizes the Principle of Rest. Al motion proceeds from a source that is at rest. This aspect of Prajapati is an unkown quantity symbol’ referred to as Ka in the Rgveda. Ka, in Sanskrit means ‘who’. The one who created all is described by the single word ka and is later identified with Prajapati and Brahma in the Rg Veda. It is in this unknown, unmanifested form that Brahma transcends time and space.
Brahma is referred to in many texts as Swayambhu (self-born) or aja (unborn). Nobody created him, he is self existent, the first cause of all and existing by his own intrinsic powers.
In one version, it is said that Brahma created the primeval waters and deposited his seed, the cosmic seed, the golden egg in the waters. The glistening golden egg was inanimate and so Brahma Himself entered it to animate it. It broke and form it came Brahma, once again. So he is called Hiranyagarbha or born of a golden egg.
In another version, in a Puranic text called the Vamanapurana, it is said that in the very beginning all was water. The germ of living beings gathered into an egg. Brahma who was within the egg, went off to sleep therein. The sleep continued for a thousand yugas or ages.
But before going on with the story I will gave to call attention to the time span mentioned. Time, in Hindu mythology is measured with Brahma’s time cycle. It is believed that he too has a limited time span after which he will be recreated into a new version. But using his life span as the largest measure, the smallest moment has been described. Do you know how long one kastha, is? It comprises twelve parts of the smallest unit of time, nimisa. How long, then, is a nimisa? It could perhaps be defined as a second or as the smallest conceivable measure of time and so on, but it requires genius to be able to define one nimisa as equal to the length of time taken to bat the eyelid. And that is how the Puranic texts define the nimisa. If the eyelid bats fifteen times, you have lived one kastha. Thirty kasthas make one kala. Nine hundred kalas make one day and night. Fifteen days make one paksha and twenty-four pakshas make one year. One night of Brahma is forty-three crores twenty lacs of human years (432,00,00,000 years) in length. Thirty-six thousand days and nights of Brahma make for his complete life span. So, in terms of Brahma’s life which has inconceivable time within it, the smallest wink has been placed!
Going back to the story, Brahma lay within the egg and when he woke, he cut the egg open. From it the Omkara or the sacred syllable Om emanated. The first sound was bhuh, the second bhuvaha and the third svaha. So they came to be known as Bhurbhuvaha svaha, with the sun emerging from the egg, in the centre of which was the creator Brahma.
Yet another Purana titled the Devi Purana says Brahma came form the navel of Lord Vishnu. It is said that Lord Vishnu was lying on a banyan leaf, cuddling as a child. He lay wondering who he was and who had created him. What had he been created for and what was his work were some the other questions plaguing him. And then the story unfolded before his eyes where divine inspiration came to him saying that it was but a pattern of the world that each time creation was to begin, Lord Vishnu had to be born again. And this time form his navel, Lord Brahma was to emerge. Accordingly, it is believed that from his navel a golden coloured lotus grew and on the lotus was seated Brahma. This episode is also called the padma vidhi or the lotus way: wherein the whole world is described in parts of the lotus. Brahma began his action of creation from there.
Besides being the creator, Brahma is also associated with the knowledge of the Vedas. He enunciates Vedic knowledge in a fourfold pattern, the quadrupilication conceived as a Swastika, which underlies every manifest form. Brahma is said to have four faces, each one for one Veda. The legend related by grandmothers goes that Brahma was very fond of his wife Satarupa. One day as she was walking around Brahma, he found he could not turn his head and look at her for his daughters were also seated beside him. To solve this problem, in the place of one, he grew five heads facing the air. One he lost in a battle with Siva, the other four remain.
The creations performed by Brahma are of two kinds. The first is Sarga or that kind of creation which survive destruction at the end of each day of Brahma. They are probably the divine entities. The next creation is called pratisarga or that which is temporary in nature and can be destroyed. The universe itself falls into the second category what to talk of mortal beings, for a fire or flood can completely destroy it.
Yet Brahma, the one who measures our time with but a wink, is not worshiped widely. Researchers feel till the 5th century AD he was worshipped and his worshipers were called Vipras. Many others feel he never was worshipped, he was always overshadowed by the other two gods of the trinity. They tell a story why he is not worshiped: Vishnu and Brahma were having a heated discussion. Brahma said he had single-handedly created the universe and Vishnu was not wiling to stomach that. As they were fighting for credits, A huge shining linga (the phallic symbol of Siva), a column of fire as it were, appeared before them. Vishnu assumed the form of a boar and went underground looking for the base of the pillar of fire. No base could be found. He came back saying so. Brahma went upwards, into the sky in the form of a swan. He went on and on but no end was in sight. Tired he decided to turn around and get back when he saw a flower falling. He stopped the flower and enquired where it was coming from. The flower replied that it was falling down from Siva’s head. An idea struck Brahma and he came back and said he had reached the head of Siva. As proof he held out the flower. Vishnu however admitted that he could not find the base. Siva cursed Brahma for telling lies by saying that he would not have a cult of is own on earth. So it is that no shrine is built exclusively for Brahma.
This story below was sent to me by my dear neighbor and kind friend Mr Prem Chandra ..
Shatarupa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Hindu mythology, when Brahma was creating the universe,
he made a female deity known as Shatarupa (one with a hundred beautiful forms).
According to the Matsya Purana
Shatarupa was known by different names including Satarupa, Sarasvati, Sandhya or Brahmi.
Hindu mythology uses her story to explain Brahma’s four heads.
When Brahma created Shatarupa,
he was immediately infatuated
and pursued her wherever she went.
Shatarupā moved in various directions to avoid his gaze
but wherever she went, Brahmā developed another head until he had four,
one for each direction of the compass.
Desperate, Shatarupa leaped over him to stay out of his gaze even for a moment.
A fifth head, however, appeared above the others.
Thus, Brahmā developed five heads.
At this moment Shiva appeared, cut off the top head and
determined that since Shatarupā was Brahma’s daughter(being created by him),
it was wrong and incestous of Brahma to become obsessed with her.
He directed that there be no proper worship in India for the “unholy” Brahma.
Thus, only the other two Gods of the Trimurti, Vishnu and Shiva continue to be worshipped,
while Brahma is almost totally ignored.
Ever since the incident, Brahma has been reciting
the four Vedas,one from every mouth, in his attempt at repentance.
———————- PpC
April 15th, 2007
Indian diplomacy is 50 per cent protocol, 30 per cent alcohol and 20 per cent T.N. Kaul (India's legendary foreign secretary in the late sixties), so goes the famous one-liner. But it's clearly much more than glamorous parties and clinking champagne glasses as a new book, which stitches together analyses, insights and reminiscences of India's stalwart diplomats, shows.
Entitled "The Ambassadors' Club" (Harper Collins), the book, edited by K.V. Rajan, a retired diplomat, weaves rare snapshots of Indian diplomacy in action at some of the fraught and exhilarating moments in India's management of its foreign relations.
The book bristles with revelations and rare insights into how Indian diplomacy operates on the ground amid challenging situations and takes you beyond cliched official formulations and discourses that often hide more than they say.
A.N.D Haksar's brief but compelling account of an impromptu summit meeting between Pakistan's dictator Zia-ul-Haq and India's then Prime Minister Morarji Desai in Nairobi in 1978 during the funeral ceremony of Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta is one such example that will prod readers to dig deeper into the book.
In the chapter entitled "A Singular Summit," Haksar writes: "Butto was executed in the following summer of 1979 by the Zia government despite pleas for clemency from many leaders and governments around the world. One which made no such plea was India, the Desai government taking the view that the matter was an internal affair of Pakistan. Whether or not the previous summer's summit had any role in this can only be a subject of speculation."
There are also gripping accounts of some of the country's much-esteemed retired diplomats whose stints coincided with history-changing moments in the countries in which they were posted.
T.P. Sreenivasan found himself grappling with the aftermath of a coup in Fiji in 1987 which was aimed at undermining the Indian-origin majority in Fiji's affairs. A. Madhavan recalls vividly what it meant to be in the midst of one of the iconic events of the time, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how India ingeniously built diplomatic bridges with a re-unified Germany.
Jagat S. Mehta, the doyen of Indian diplomats and now in his 90s, looks back at his diplomatic stint in China and seems to question Nehru and his advisers in their judgments of Chinese intentions in the late 1950s and 1960s. Commenting on Mehta's article, K.V. Rajan, the editor of the book, writes: "Could the India-China war have been avoided if Nehru had been a better judge, or better advised, and his devoted and overawed bureaucrats were not convinced that 'Panditji knows best?"
What imparts a unique flavour to the book are first-person accounts like that of "The Last Days of Salvador Allende," the Chilean dictator, by G.J. Malik and Niranjan Desai's gripping tale of his travails in 1972 as an officer on special duty after Ugandan dictator Idi Amin whimsically expelled all Asians holding citizenship of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Britain.
"The Ambassadors' Club" is probably the first in a series of anthologies of reflections and reminiscences by Indian diplomats as they juggle diverse domains ranging from climate change negotiations to labyrinths of WTO talks and fills in on the drama and atmospherics that are missing from more scholarly tomes on international relations.
Happy Birthday Panditji!!! Your dream has come true...though in a bit different way then you would have imagined :) Thank you very much for building the undivided Union of India.
(Tribute to Pandit Nehru on his birthday 14 Nov 2008).
This is the temple on the top of the Guru Shikhar, the highest peak of the Aravalli Mountain Range, Rajasthan.
The temple is not bigger than what one can see in this shot. That panditji sits there for at least half a day. There is space just enough for one person inside the temple.
Nehru seen seeing off Pamela and her parents. For the detailed interview see www.hindu.com/2007/07/18/stories/2007071862131300.htm The Daily Times report is pasted below:
Mountbatten used wife to influence Nehru on referring Kashmir to UN
* Daughter says Nehru and Edwina had a platonic relationship
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The youngest daughter of Louis and Edwina Mountbatten says her mother and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru were very much in love, but it was a platonic affair and no sex was involved.
Lady Pamela Hicks said in a television interview that Lord Mountbatten, British India’s last viceroy, did use her mother to influence Nehru into going to the UN on the Kashmir row with Pakistan.
But Hicks insisted in her interview to Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate programme to be telecast on Sunday night that Nehru and Edwina never got physical. “If you long to believe that (they had sex), then don’t let me prevent you. But I don’t believe it,” she said. “I believe just that they loved being together ... they might like to hold hands or to hug or something like that. (But) I don’t believe, I really don’t believe, because of the fact that my father was so often around and that there was not a hint of that.”
Hicks gave the interview to mark the publication of her book ‘India Remembered’ about the 15 months she spent in the country from March 1947 to June 1948.
Pressed that it would have been natural for a widower that Nehru was to be attracted sexually to a beautiful woman that Edwina was, Hicks said: “It could be and maybe everybody will think I’m being very naive but the fact she had had lovers in the past, somehow this was so different. It really was.
“My mother was so happy with Jawaharlal ... my father knew that it helped her because a woman can, after a long marriage, and they had had their silver wedding so they’d been over 25 years together, a woman can feel perhaps frustrated, and perhaps neglected ... and so if a new affection comes into her life, a new admiration, she blossoms and she’s happy ... It made my mother, who could be quite difficult at times, as many very extraordinary women can be ... lovely to be with her. There were no prickles.”
She said that both she and her father, Lord Mountbatten, handled the Nehru-Edwina affair with tact. Asked how easy that was, she responded: “We just had to go out of the room.”
Hicks admitted that Lord Mountbatten did use his mother to influence Nehru’s thinking. “But he certainly wasn’t going to throw her, he didn’t say to her ‘go become the prime minister’s lover because I need you to intercede’. It was a by-product of this deep affection.
“I think it could have been my father, just in dry conversation might have been able to get his viewpoint over. But with my mother translating it for Panditji and making, you know, appealing to his heart more than his mind, that he should really behave like this, I think probably that did happen,” she said.
Trick or Treat
I dont know whether it was Pushkar or Goa but I heard this story and I dont know whether the guy said 2 English or 2 Americans..I am short of hearing..so we will stick to 2 Americans.An American girl of medium height and good built slightly conical tits, lovely blonde hair, full lips, yes silent and captivating lips met a charming American guy the guy was full bodied ,sparkling teeth. Elvis Presley type of hair..and the swaggering walk... and peculiar drawl.. met each other,fell in love and immediate marriage.. Hindu style,, a few rented friends.. like the rented Panditji.On the night and both desperate to consummate.. the guy removed his clothes,the belt round his waist and his huge belly fell out.. then he removed his dentures , and the Elvis Presley wig.. and told his wife happy Halloween trick or treat.. the wife removed her stuff too and the guy almost choked seeing the size of his wifes dick.. she said honey trick or treat I brought this along in case yours dosent work.
MORAL OF THE STORY.
Why cant Americans be less American and be more human and more honest when they fall in love thats why your women start searching outdoors what they dont get indoors... these are my personal views not the views of the guy I think he was an Israeli who narrrated this story to me..I have not had an experience with American men so I cant say much about them... this story could also be an allegory to whats happening in you political backyard..of a overexposed white house.
A memorial service Shardanjali Sabha was arranged in Nehru Park on Sunday Evening.It was largely attended by fans of Panditji and family memebers Anoushka and Norah Jones and Sukanya .
Vishwaa Mohan Bhatt one his disciple played tunes composed by Panditji for film Anuradhana.
I am new to the net,,, metamorphoses took place when I went to Ajmer Sharif as I am very close to the Peersaab Fakhru Miya of 6 no Hujra.. I was his guest.. I was shooting pictures of Sufi monks and disasterously crazy malangs sufi ascetics..I had a day free so I thought I would take my designer ass to Pushkar... Peersaab handed me over to a Pandit who is a caretaker of a 700 year old Hanuman temple... I was dressed as a Sadhu.. Panditji would introduce me to all sundry as important internet photographer I laughed as I hate the comp... I didnt have an internet connection...any way the words were prophetic... my kid sister Farzana Suri.. told me to get into blogs... the writing ones.. as I have a flourish tongue when I abuse.I hit google and landed at Fotothing a very English fucked site... then I struck gold I hit Buzznet... life has never been the same...I met liked minded weather beaten folks.. I am a drug and alcoholic survivor... it has been happy sailing on this raft built with images...
an imagery that words cant describe,, this photo of the skulls is shot at my fashion studio as tribute of our freindship ,the bunch is Yorrick he loves skulls...Friar Tuck.. mean mother Tucker.. thats the way he describes himself.. Drunk Geko shoots the most beautiful nudes on the island of Reunion... Deadheading is a monk in the making, Goodude and Quiholet are hung up on Jesus, Anthony is the founder of Buzznet and Honeytoes... she is magic. and finally Xris,,, he speaks all the languges including some dead ones... and finally Axa 13 ... his profile wont fit in here but he is some character,,,, Tuck is my favorite... I think Friar Tuck really did Marion in every time Robin Hood had an upset stomach... the Sherrif was a queer after Robin Hoods ass,,,, its midnight,,, I am still hitting the keys,,,
This was one of my earliest blog posts..
The road from Bhalookpong to Bomdilla passes through varied altitude. Start early. Once you pass Sheesa you will be on a up-hill drive. Back home if you show the Video footage of the forest (on your both sides) and tell your friends that you were in Amazon Rain Forest - chance is that 99.99% will believe :-) This is a Fog & Mist Zone which is also a Danger Zone, drive slow, drive carefully, honk. After this you will come down to Tangi, where you will be just beside the River Kameng. Its a beautiful place, there is a Hotel and you can always stay here for a day or two while coming back.
En-route to Tawang its better you stay for a day at Bomdilla it helps physically & mentally. You can enjoy the road to Tawang better.
In Bomdilla there is nothing much to do, walk on the street, do window shopping. You can go to the Govt Cottage Industry Centre but that place has a photograph of Pandit Neheru & it has not moved much from the time Panditji paid his visit.
Bomdilla is very windy and the Temp goes down bellow Zero in winter. Food is good at Hotel. I advise you to stay in Hotel and not to rely upon the run-down Tourist Guest House, don't trust the Govt Advertisement, if you do so then Plz do it at your Own Risk.
Go to Bed early - start early for Tawang.
By the way, Bomdilla means “Where bomb has dropped".
Panditji sits by the Ganga ghat at Harki pauri, Haridwar and facilitates last rites and death anniversary ceremonies. He has records of all the families that he has worked with in the past. One can walk up to him and quote his family name, gotra, address and the year when his family members employed his services and he fishes out the details from his numerous hand written records. No computers, no digital databases...just rolls and rolls of hand written registers maintained over years. The family pictured here had someone work with Panditji way back in 1985 and it took just a few minutes for him to pull the details out. He has been doing that for generations. There are many like Panditji in cities like Haridwar, Gaya, Varanasi etc who help devotees with ceremonies for the deaprted family members
In her highly readable book "India Remembered" Pamela Mountbatten notes:
My parents had met Pandit Nehru in 1946 when he had travelled to Malaya to meet the Indians living there. My father was Supreme Allied commander and some of his staff warned him that there might be trouble and were against his meeting with Nehru. One of his staff had already refused to provide transport for the visitor. When he heard this my father was furious.
He drove with Pandit Nehru in his official car to the YMCA in Singapore, where the meeting was being held. My mother was already there with a group of Indian welfare workers. As she came forward to be introduced, a crowd of Panditji's admirers swarmed in behind them and she was knocked off her feet. She crawled under a table from where Panditji rescued her.
Towards the end of the fifteen months we spent in India, the immediate attraction between my mother and Panditji blossomed into love. Nehru was a widower and his daughter, Mrs gandhi was still married with a husband to look after, and was not often around. he had sent his sister as ambassador to Moscow, and then to New York, and he didn't see much of his second sister, who was in Bombay. If you are at the pinnacle of power you are alone; whatever you say to your colleagues is likely to be immediately broadcast, so you can't talk to your political collaborators at all and you are lonely. She became his confidante. Nehru would never write to her until about two in the morning, when he had finished his work, and his letters were a fascinating diary of the creation of India. He would start with a charming opening paragraph, and he would end affectionately. But the main part of the letters were a diary of everything he had been doing and the people he had seen, his hopes and fears, and towards the end of this twelve year correspondence, his disappointments and disillusions.
My mother had already had lovers. My father was inured to it. it broke his heart the first time, but it was somehow different with Nehru. He wrote to my sister in June 1948: 'She and Jawaharlal are so sweet together, they really dote on each other in the nicest way and pammy and I are doing everything we can to be tactful and help. Mummy has been incredibly sweet lately and we've been such a happy family'.
So there existed a happy three-some based on firm understading on all sides. This letter was writen I suppose because their relationship had deepened the month before, in May, when we had gone to Mashobra, and indeed Panditji, found themselves able at last to relax a little for a few days. Everybody had been too busy to work on friendships until that point, but I think it was that trip that was really special for us all. Nehru referred to this in a letter to my mother written much later in March 1957:
Suddenly I realised (and perhaps you did also) that there was a deeper attachment between us, that some uncontrollable force, of which I was dimly aware, drew us to one another, I was overwhelmed and at the same time exhilarated by this discovery. We talked more intimately as if some veil had been removed and we could look into each other's eyes without fear or embarrassment.
The relationship remained platonic but it was a deep love. And although it was not physical, it was no less binding for that. It would last until death. They met about twice a year. She would include a visit to India in her overseas tours on behalf of the St John's Ambulance Brigade and the Save the Children Fund. From the beginning she would continue to oversee the work of rehabilitation and relief which she had set up for the refugees uprooted by Partition.
Panditji would come to London for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conferences. He would always come down to Broadlands, our house in Hampshire, for a weekend. We kept a little grey mare for him so that he could come out riding with us.
My mother was on an overseas tour in 1960 and had just left India, carrying out a heavy program of inspections and engagements in Borneo, when her heart gave out and she died in her sleep aged fifty eight. A packet of letterss from Panditji was found by her bedside. In her will she left the whole collection of letters to my father. A suitcase was crammed full of them. My father was almost certain that there would be nothing in the letters to wound him. However a tiny doubt caused him to ask me to read the letters first. I was happy to be able to reassure him. They were remarkable letters but contained nothing to hurt him.
On my mother's death the two Houses of the Indian Parliament stood in silence in her memory and a frigate from the Indian Navy attended her funeral at sea off Portsmouth. They cast a wreath of marigolds into the ocean on behalf of the Prime Minister, Nehru.
photocourtesy
newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42480000/jpg/_42480360_taj...
It’s a genetic aberration
DNA oriented a hate filled
Sense of insecurity that
Indians hate Indians
Don’t ask me why
My words bombast
Says a photographer Panditji on the sly
Hidden behind a smoke screen
Of cybernetic hate little podgy
Hands reaching the sky
He could not find his dictionary
Hard he did try
Threatened from Day one
Of my arrival a tsunami
A breezing blogger
This confused Muslim Indian guy
Bitter Photography Forum
Men turned Women they cry
Yes I unsubscribed
Bad Rubbish Good Bye
Racism exists in our backyard too
This bitter truth can’t deny
Photographers selling their mothers
Money is more important
Whatever trade you ply
Juvenile jujubes with diapers
Milking the system of a Cow
Udders gone dry
God save you brother
Pictorial prejudice
Inferiority of spirit
Waspish woes
Indians hate Indians
From the frying pan
Into the fire your
Soul they will fry
If they sense you are
More talented than them
Collectively bottled crabs
Will stab you by and by
firoze shakir
The Nehru Trophy Boat Race on the Punnamda Lake, near Alappuzha, held on the second Saturday of August every year, is the most competitive and popular of the boat races. On the day of this fiercely fought boat race, the tranquil lake front is transformed into a sea of humanity with an estimated two lakh people, including tourists from abroad, coming to watch the event. For the people of each village in Kuttanad, a victory at this race for their village boat is something to be celebrated for months to come.
The major attraction of the boat race is the competition of snake boats chundanvallams or snake boats.Chundans (snake boats) are an impressive sight, measuring over 100 feet in length, with a raised prow. They were called snake boats by the former colonial rulers, who based the name on a native boat found in Norway,although Kerala's Chundans bear little resemblance to their European namesakes.
The history of the Nehru Trophy Boat Race is associated with the visit of late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India to Alappuzha.Visit Official website of Alappuzha. He chanced a trip from Kottayam to Alappuzha Visit Official website of Alappuzha.by boat, through water logged Kuttanad. A pageantry of boats accompanied him on the trip.The first race was an impromptu once conducted in 1952 in honour of Panditji who visited Alappuzha.In that race of snake boats, Nadubhagam Chundan stood first. Panditji, who was thrilled and excited in the performance of the oarsmen, jumped into the Nadubhagam Chundan, forgetting all security arrangements.The boat proceeded to the boat jetty carrying the Prime Minister.On his return to Delhi in December 1952, Nehru donated a Silver Trophy, which is a replica of a snake boat placed on a wooden abacus.The trophy bears the following inscription above his signature.
“To the winners of the boat race which is a unique feature of community life in Travancore Cochin."
This trophy later came to be known as Nehru Trophy, and in fond memory of great Panditiji, the people of Alappuzha celebrate the Nehru Trophy Boat Race every year.
"Jawahar Thayankari of Town Boat Club, Kumarakom won This year's Nehru Trophy "
The Nehru Trophy Boat Race on the Punnamda Lake, near Alappuzha, held on the second Saturday of August every year, is the most competitive and popular of the boat races. On the day of this fiercely fought boat race, the tranquil lake front is transformed into a sea of humanity with an estimated two lakh people, including tourists from abroad, coming to watch the event. For the people of each village in Kuttanad, a victory at this race for their village boat is something to be celebrated for months to come.
The major attraction of the boat race is the competition of snake boats chundanvallams or snake boats.Chundans (snake boats) are an impressive sight, measuring over 100 feet in length, with a raised prow. They were called snake boats by the former colonial rulers, who based the name on a native boat found in Norway,although Kerala's Chundans bear little resemblance to their European namesakes.
The history of the Nehru Trophy Boat Race is associated with the visit of late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India to Alappuzha.Visit Official website of Alappuzha. He chanced a trip from Kottayam to Alappuzha Visit Official website of Alappuzha.by boat, through water logged Kuttanad. A pageantry of boats accompanied him on the trip.The first race was an impromptu once conducted in 1952 in honour of Panditji who visited Alappuzha.In that race of snake boats, Nadubhagam Chundan stood first. Panditji, who was thrilled and excited in the performance of the oarsmen, jumped into the Nadubhagam Chundan, forgetting all security arrangements.The boat proceeded to the boat jetty carrying the Prime Minister.On his return to Delhi in December 1952, Nehru donated a Silver Trophy, which is a replica of a snake boat placed on a wooden abacus.The trophy bears the following inscription above his signature.
“To the winners of the boat race which is a unique feature of community life in Travancore Cochin."
This trophy later came to be known as Nehru Trophy, and in fond memory of great Panditiji, the people of Alappuzha celebrate the Nehru Trophy Boat Race every year.
"Jawahar Thayankari of Town Boat Club, Kumarakom won This year's Nehru Trophy "
I had come to Ajmer Sharif for the Urus in 2005 , and lived at the house of Peersab Fakhru Miya Hujra no 6 and I had never seen the Pushkar Mandir in my life not in pictures or otherwise .
I was totally enthralled by shooting the Rifai Silsila and this was my trip to Ajmer to document the Love of Khwajah Moinuddin Chishti for Imam Hussain.. he was from the same family genealogy and the words on the Bulund Darwaza in praise of Imam Hussain are etched on the soul of lovers of Ahle Bayt.
Shah ast Hussain, Badshah ast Hussain
Deen ast Hussain, Deen Panah ast Hussain
Sardad na dad dast, dar dast-e-yazeed,
Haqaa key binaey La ila ast Hussain
Loosely translated
Ruler is Hussain, Emperor is Hussain,
Faith is Hussain , guardian of faith is Hussain .
Offered his head and not the hand to Yazid.
Truly, the mirror of faith is Hussain
Source Raza Rumi
I had met Peersab Fakhru Miya in 2004 at Juhu for the first time too and it was his invitation to visit Ajmer once in my life time ,, I was not much into Dargahs , only the ones that were part of the Rifai Silsila in and around Mumbai.
So basically it was this quest and nothing else , Late Sikandar Wali Bawa of Chancawalli Rafees , who I met at Makhdhoom Shah Baba introduced me to the world of Rafaees , I documented them at Mahim including the Holy Shrine of Fakhruddin Shah Baba , Ismail Shah Baba , Ali Maula Dharavi , Gaiban Shah Baba , Chansawalli and last Haji Malang where the Rifais have a spiritual base .
But the Rifais have the largest base at Ajmer Sharif with the Chishtiya order and so Peersabs invitation was something I would not miss .
My first night at Ajmer I had a dream of a huge ornate Hindu Temple blue and white , I discussed it with Peersab and he told me that I was being called to Pushkar a few km away from Ajmer .
I had never heard of Pushkar I asked Peersab for a guide , he gave me a Hindu devotee of Garib Nawaz a Head Priest of 750 year old Hanuman temple in Ajmer and I set out to Pushkar , as we were climbing the steps of Pushkar the Head Priest of Pushkar spotted me and invited me for tea and thus began my tryst with Lord Brahma ..
I have two dear friends in Pushkar Niru Bullet from that trip , and later I met Raj Tilak a iron smith aspiring Bollywood actor , all my kamas to cut my head are from Pushkar and blessed from this Hindu town.
And these are images of Pushkar shot in Black and White along with me is Panditji from Hanuman Temple of Ajmer and a young sadhu who does yoga for foreigners at the Pushkar lake .
I try not to miss out on Pushkar , and spend time with Raj Tilak and Niru , Raj Tilak is building a guest house for friends like me in his bungalow.
His entire family treat me as their own , touching my feet seeking my blessings I feel pretty odd , I am nothing but a mere speck of dust myself.
So this is my Pushkar story and my disembodied cosmic connection with Lord Brahma.
How can i not include even one photo from my dunagiri..however much it pains me.
Panditji and his son...
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